From the manual, "Press and hold the “-” button to turn off the light." So you can turn off the light, that settles that.

Yeah, but the control is on the screen... too bad there's no way to turn it on manually. If you have it off and are in the dark you'll have trouble trying to turn it back on, unless you have awesome positional memory. :-)

With firmware, or a hack, it could automatically turn on (dimly) for a short time after power on if it is set to off. Or a short tap on the power button could turn the light on long enough for you to adjust the light setting.

If needed and the firmware does not yet support it, one of us will do a hack for it. That is what we do (in the Dev Corner)...

I just bought my first e-reader.. Nook Glo.. but also have Paperwhite on order.. we shall see.. the Paperwhite should be much better.. I always use and read the old style paper books so this should be interesting.. so far after 2 books the NOOK is fine.. kinda different than the old style books, but hey.. this is 2012.. I need to step it up.. what are your takes and opinions? Old Style Paper or Electronic?

Don't really like the sound of this if I'm understanding it correctly...

Quote:

Recommended content
When in Cover View, your Kindle Home screen displays recommended content from the
Kindle Store, such as Editors’ Picks. Tapping the item will direct you to the Kindle Store,
where you can view additional details, read customer reviews, and complete purchases.
Swipe or tap to view additional content.

I just bought my first e-reader.. Nook Glo.. but also have Paperwhite on order.. we shall see.. the Paperwhite should be much better.. I always use and read the old style paper books so this should be interesting.. so far after 2 books the NOOK is fine.. kinda different than the old style books, but hey.. this is 2012.. I need to step it up.. what are your takes and opinions? Old Style Paper or Electronic?

Personally I'm in love with eBooks. After many years of buying paper books I've reached the point I'm unwilling to give up any more of my living space for more books. But I like to re-read books. Sometimes I just want to read a particular chapter of an old favorite or I want to switch from fiction to nonfiction or I want to look something up that I read or I want to search one of my books for a particular reference--it's easy to do all of this with eReaders but not possible with a library of paper books.

Really, eBooks were invented for people like me who discover a love for reading.

Personally I'm in love with eBooks. After many years of buying paper books I've reached the point I'm unwilling to give up any more of my living space for more books. But I like to re-read books. Sometimes I just want to read a particular chapter of an old favorite or I want to switch from fiction to nonfiction or I want to look something up that I read or I want to search one of my books for a particular reference--it's easy to do all of this with eReaders but not possible with a library of paper books.

Really, eBooks were invented for people like me who discover a love for reading.

I also discovered new authors, indie or not, that I would never ever have looked at in a bookshop (had they been there for me to find), so this is another great plus for me. I do miss the feeling of paper on my fingers though, I admit it, so once in a while I enjoy reading a paperbook, but that is indeed only once or twice a year.

Many Fire users complained about recommendations on the home screen, so Amazon is making them optional:

Quote:

We wanted to let you know that in the coming weeks, free software updates will be coming to Kindle Fire HD and the latest generation Kindle Fire. These software updates will include Kindle FreeTime, a tablet experience just for kids allowing parents to set daily screen time limits, and give access to appropriate content for each child. We're also adding a setting to let customers control whether or not personalized recommendations appear below the carousel on the device homepage. In addition, customers will be able to set their device default language to one of six languages, including English (US), English (UK), German, French, Italian, and Spanish. These updates will be delivered automatically to your Kindle Fire.

I'm just hoping that we actually do get a cover view for user content and not just another storefront.

I just bought my first e-reader.. Nook Glo.. but also have Paperwhite on order.. we shall see.. the Paperwhite should be much better.. I always use and read the old style paper books so this should be interesting.. so far after 2 books the NOOK is fine.. kinda different than the old style books, but hey.. this is 2012.. I need to step it up.. what are your takes and opinions? Old Style Paper or Electronic?

I MUCH prefer ebooks to paper. One really handy and useful thing is the ability to create a collection called "read next", which helps me keep track of where I am in a series. 1st in series is another collection I can't live without.

I'm interested but still VERY concerned about:
-that it might have the same problems as the NookGlo with white dots on the screen.

- eye strain, eye strain, eye strain: a million times over. Sure it's not backlit, it's front lit but the lights are still there facing you. After being in front of an LCD screen, iPad, and iPhone most of the day I want to rest my eyes.

-How delicate will it be? Kindles are delicate enough as they are, my Nook has been checked in twice on the front pocket of my suitcase (forgot it was there) and has survived long trips and the gentleness of baggage handlers in UK and AU.

I'm guessing sooner or later there will be an option to get rid of the recommendations, if enough people complain. Nook has recommendations too, by the way. They call it "What to read next".

Yes, on the nook home screen you see recommendations, but the nook also has a "library" screen where you can see your books (in cover view) and no recommendations.

So if you don't like the recommendations (or at least want the choice to hide them), and want other options (like being able to decide what appears at the bottom of the screen - percentages, progress bar, none, etc.), be sure to email kindle support to tell them.

A few other things I noticed from the manual:
Looks like turning wifi/3G off is called "airplane mode", like in the basic K4, and may be more difficult to get to (turning off wireless might not be a menu option while reading a book). Slightly annoying...

It does have parental controls, though they aren't discussed much.

"Enhanced viewing of images and tables is available for select Kindle books, enabling you to both pan and zoom." It will be awesome to be able to zoom in on images (beyond simply zooming to fit the screen, as we can do now, but actually zoom farther in), if that's what they mean, especially for maps, diagrams, or tables. But I wonder which books can have this - I wonder if I'll have to do anything special for readers to be able to super-zoom and pan our images (like the Oz map). OTOH, maybe they just mean you can zoom in (to fill the screen) images, and pan tables - the same as on the Touch - NOT that you can zoom images beyond the size that will fill the screen...

In the specs at the end, it says the resolution is 758 x 1024. I wonder if that's a typo. The Kobo glow is 768 x 1024 - a standard screen size and proportion/ratio.